I forgot... before my time away becoming l3mce the White... it was decided that automagic kernel upgrading would not happen. This and some other hardware requires the backported natty kernel.

For those with this hardware, or other newer nvidia stuff running 1004, where nothing appears in aplay -l the following is required.sudo -i on the core and ssh moonXX where XX is the moon number if this is an MD.

apt-get install -yf linux-image-generic-lts-backport-natty linux-headers-generic-lts-backport-nattychmod +r /vmlinuzIf there is an issue then you might apt-get install --reinstall -yf alsa-base alsa-utils and remove the old kernel with apt-get remove. I am not providing that specifically because it would depend on what version your kernel is, which can change.

Now, I can play video and hear audio successfully via lmce.I can still not mute from lmce, but I can live with that (decrease / increase is not expected to work anyways because the digital signal via hdmi can only be controlled to on/off).

To summarize, the relevant settings that eventually worked for me were:

cat /etc/pluto/xine.conf...audio.device.alsa_front_device:asym_hdmiaudio.device.alsa_default_device:asym_hdmiaudio.device.alsa_passthrough_device:plughw:1,3audio.output.speaker_arrangement:Pass Through

Hardware accelaration: vdpauDeinterlace quality: vdpauVideo Card : Geoforce or TNT2Audio settingsSelecting HDMI (or anyhting other than "Manual") causes to execute Setup_AsoundConf in /usr/pluto/bin/SetupAudioVideo.shIdeally this should set e.g. asound.conf, xine.conf correctly but, for some reasons it replaces the good settings with settings that break Xine_Player.So instead, use:

Now, I can play video and hear audio successfully via lmce.I can still not mute from lmce, but I can live with that (decrease / increase is not expected to work anyways because the digital signal via hdmi can only be controlled to on/off).

Whenever you go digital from a media director to an amp, all volume control function are a function of the amp, and not of the PC. Mute, Vol+ and Vol- will only work by controlling the amp.